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Recently, we have discovered a meme on Facebook which we deemed to be worth a comment: In this phrase, we soon found several issues.

Firstly, these mental patterns tend to assign us to the role of a victim and usually make us neglectresponsibility for our actions. At the same time, we are bereft of the control of our emotions which are triggered by external impacts rather than ourselves.

How is it possible to hurt another person? What is the origin of hurt feelings? If an action is hurtful, then will it hurt everyone to the same extent?

How is the extent of hurt and pain dependent on the person that experiences a trauma? It is to say that in this article, we are covering emotional, not physical traumas.

Maybe, you we can grasp this topic more easily when we leave aside deliberate and purpose-driven harm. These deserve an article in their own right. Harm induced by accident or unthoughtfulness evokes similar results, thus it is worth investigating the harm’s origin.

But for now let’s focus on the harmed person: If you are harmed, you likely perceive the act of harming as some unspecific action taken or an act of speech performed, resulting in hurt feelings. Indeed, you will f e e l hurt. It is a feeling that is linked to a specific situation. This link between the cognitive reception and the attached emotion is individually hardwired.

Thus, the initiator accidental harm does not consciously evoke an emotion. How on earth should they do so anyway? Initiators follow their own behavioural patterns acquired by individual, oftentimes, too, painful life experience, subsequently attached with painful emotions.

So if we try to prioritise preventing others from being harmed, how can we be authentic and interact with others? This is, at least, severely hampered. Because everyone has thoughts and patterns attached to emotions both positive and negative, we would need to study our environment intensely, feeding the retrieved information into a database. This, then, would at best serve as rough guide to interaction on encountering other people.

This, begging your pardon, is rather unrealistic. And, while assessing a scenario, how should we adjust ourselves to it, trying to avoid all potholes in the road?

Now let’s take the harmed person’s perspective.

It is easily done to point your finger at someone , accusing them of having harmed you. This, anyhow, won’t soothe the pain. You just pass the responsibility on to someone else, getting away with no change at all. By the way, we are talking about that kind of change that will to avoid feeling hurt, be it partially or fully.

The connections between cognition and emotion have been established deliberately by ourselves. In other words, these patterns can also be altered, and linked entities can be rearranged.

For this purpose we have to look at ourselves instead of our counterparts. What exactly that our opposite does makes us feel hurt, and why? Are there situations in the past where similar emotions were evoked? Which are our established beliefs that make us feel hurt? Once we have found answers these questions, we can begin questions the would-be facts in order to redo the emotional attachments.

Emotions are exclusively evoked by thoughts attached to them.

Let’s look at an example that may be common to many of us. While driving through town, we see familiar faces. Whilst we have the impression of having been noticed, we greet the others, but no there is no reaction at all. When we are emotionally stable, maybe we’d assume the other one is busy with thoughts. But we would then proceed on our way without giving much thought to the incident.

Not so, if we are unstable: We would blame ourselves for having done something wrong that lets the other one ignore us. If our mental assessment concludes that there is no obvious reasons, we would probably call the other one names, swearing we will never ever greet them again. That incident ruined our day and we feel hurt.

Albeit it is the same situation, the cognitive perception and its interpretation are just as contradictory. And it is our own choice which scenario we choose.

Even if such a situation should occur again, it is a lot more useful to address that other person.Uncertainty and doubts are long-standing and annoying companions. Relieving the uncertainty can help to let go unwanted things. Either the other person apologizes and has a straightforward explanation, or we will get to know that we are deemed to be an unpleasant person and therefore are not being greeted.

If we then feel hurt, it is our own responsability. We can’t be everybody’s darling. If someone does not like us – so be it. Still, this is no deliberate act of harm. It is us who rummage in the attic to find that old painful feeling again. By pointing your finger at the so-called “initiator“ or the harm, we carry on feeling hurt, and if we are dealing with numerous people, this effect will occur oftentimes. We can’t change others and even so, we can’t help others not liking us. But we can change our view on the matter. And so can we influence the feeling that is evoked in such situations.

Maybe this one’s for you: There is a moment in life where reality practically opposes your dreams. You wake up from one of these enchanting dreams, realising you were actually dreaming. But why? That’s how it should be.

Sometimes, dreams become a hideout/retreat/refuge from real life. Yet, the would-be safe-haven can be treacherous. While we’re lingering in your dreams, life passes by. Soon, our most valuable good, our lifespan, will be spent.

While roaming your dreams, you neglect making them come true. You plod on, hoping some day, your dreams will be fulfilled. Thus, we linger in our dreams as much as possible in order to numb the pain induced by reality. As we seek refuge in our dreams, present conditions tend to feel less painful. This results in reduced motivation leave behind our present situation to strive for the fulfillment of our dreams.

On top of that, we persuade ourselves that reality isn’t that things aren’t actually that bad. If that doesn’t help, we complain about even little flaws in life. And here we go, the pain is numbed.

Pain and discontentment anyhow have the strongest impact for a change. Once pain rises over a certain threshold, we begin to change our lives. Before reaching that point, we remain in fear of the unknown, staying any effort to proceed changing.

Sometimes, development is triggered by an ordeal: maybe we or a member of or family have an accident, or we are fired by our employer, or we are diagnosed a severe illness. To some extent, also a divorce or the end of a relationship can make us think.

But do things need to escalate in order to induce change, appreciation for our lives and the urge to discontinue those things that keep us from leading a life according to our dreams?

At any time you can assess your life to find out if it corresponds with your visions and dreams. When you cultivate respect and appreciation for yourselves and refrain from belittling your needs, pain and discontent, chances grow for a change. You can start living in the present and become active in order to create the life of your dreams.But beware: You will need to firmly commit yourself to it.

Do not blame others or external circumstances for your own situation, but realise the dimension of your own responsibility. By the way, it actually is possible to do so ;-).

Last but not least: Let’s look at an example for responsibility and neglecting to live your dreams: the game of LOTTO.

Having your LOTTO ticket in your pocket keeps you hoping to become rich once and then subsequently our dreams would come true. But clinging to hope will bereave us of our motivation to become active and to work your way towards your aims. The chance of winning in the LOTTO game, anyhow, is as low a one in a million. Also, personal achievements will be appreciated much more thoroughly than undeserved gifts could ever be.

Why do we place ourselves underneath to whom we credit more valuethan to ourselves, id est attractive and successful people, politicians and VIPs?

The first point is: Are all these people really more valuable, that is, better than we? Usually, we perceive only one singular assets to which we credit value and thus add further „positive“ aspects.

We only see the outside; the outside being like the tip of an iceberg that becomes visible for us.

Neither have we walked a mile in that person’s shoes, nor do we see all ends. In fact, it is only a very small, chrome-class portrait of the truth. And still, we compare this to our own, sometimes less spectacular everyday life.

Anyhow, this comparison has flaws. Yet, it takes quite some effort and reflection to see. The feeling of lack evoked by this comparison lingers on and and considered reduces our sense of self-esteem.

But why then are we prone to fall into dependence, neediness, submitting ourselves to others?

We demand from other people to make us feel appreciated and accepted, too. And we want to be seen. When we meet a beautiful woman or a handsome man, then we behave differently, trying to impress that person.

We make our self-esteem dependent of that person’s attention, ceasing to be authentic in that very moment. We inhibit a role, become needy, inauthentic and downright ridiculous. By not being authentic, we lose our natural charisma and are subsequently ignored by others. This is exactly opposite of what we want.

As long as we think to have a lack of attention and appreciation, we contort ourselves in order to have others compensate this insufficiency. Sometimes, this can work out for a moment, but most likely it’s going to fail. As it is but a compensation, the actual problem cannot be tackled that way. The symptom can only be soothed.

In order escape from this dilemma, we should develop internal references to which we can compare ourselves. Our own development and achievements then become the only focus. By doing so, we avoid comparing ourselves to others and , due to the lack of a complete impression, putting them in a superior position.

Once this matter has been addressed, fear of flirtatious situations and superiors as well as submissive behaviour become a thing of the past.

As a welcome side-effect our ability to bond with others, in the sense of a relationship, increases noticeably. And it helps to put up with emotional dependencies.

As soon as we cease making others superior to ourselves, we stand in the first place. When we refrain from following others, trying to emulate them, others will start to follow our footprints, even unasked for. By stepping aside the hierarchies were were part of, we ultimately attain leadership.At least in an emotional way.

Being emotionally dependent:

A close-up on how it evolves and how it has impact on your life

Firstly, it is important to discern if we are dealing with an emotional dependency in order to relieve it. This is the first step to leading an independent and self-contained life. Emotional dependencies occur in any personal relationship, and reputedly they tend to weaken interpersonal bonds. Whenever we have the feeling that a peer does not feed back into the balance of our emotional reservoir, thus we perceive a lack of something, it is probable that there is an emotional dependency at work.

The cause of such a dependency can be a lack of appreciation, attention, respect or any other negative feeling that might occur. As a rule, on assessing the trigger for the emotion, only external factors are considered and others are blamed for someone’s bad condition.

Handy though it seems, it is a bad deal in the long run. By doing so, negative emotions and their causes will never be unravelled and analysed, retrieving the true cause and making it obsolete.

Feelings we had in our childhood when we felt unable to cope or did not command adequate tools for handling the matter, compensating some lack or soothing our pain.

Your own emotional auto-pilot

These strategies often are put to use in everyday life, for most of us, they have become habitual. So, if we a facing a situation that our subconscience associates with incidents from our childhood, the “autopilot” takes over. Memorised patterns of action set in. The reactivated childhood patterns,are connected with an emotional footprint that forces us back into the our childhood’s perspective. And from this point of view we try to find a solution in the present.

Those childhood patterns aren’t fit for an adult environment. So instead of improving the situation, likely things go from bad to worse. Interacting with others results in escalation. Childish behavioural patterns evoke the so-called inner child in our counterpart.

If to individuals with an inadequate behavioural repertoire meet, neither can the situation be relieved, nor will the conflict be resolved. At the moment, both aren’t ready for rational input.

We are hurt, and as an act of defense, we hurt in return.

Emotional dependency often occurs in a partnership or a professional context. The things, of which we are convinced that our parents neglected providing us with, are the ones we expect from our partners and colleagues.

Because we have grown a sense of lack, we expect others to fill the gap. This is the mechanism which makes us emotionally dependent of others.

It is crucial to distinguish this sense of lack and to address it with adult means and solutions.

As long as we are entangled with such dependencies, our emotions are dependent on external factors. We have no control over our mental state. As a result, we cede our power to others.

Of course, you should take the edge mentioned above more in a symbolic way. That gaping crevice, anyhow, can appear very deep. I am talking about those points in life where ways part and you alone must choose those road to follow. If this is the case, it’s usually not about singular decisions, but rather several ones the solutions of which are closely related to each other.

If the progress in your career is at stake, often relationship issues, too, are at hand. Then you feel like standing on the edge, but you don’t dare to dive into the water you can see underneath.

Diving, then, becomes a ground-breaking endeavour. Moreover, you don’t know what to expect at the bottom of the pit. You become yet more uneasy, peering carefully over the edge. But also you might feel intrigued by the new chances that might be waiting for you down there. In this way, it becomes a game of risk, balancing along the edge of the cliff.

This overly careful exercise will drain your energy. It will consume your time. And the more it carries on, the more difficultly it is going to get.

You are in a kind of interspace between two worlds: Your old, common environment and your potentially new one.

There is no way back. As soon as we have reached the edge, returning to your old life becomes no option. But the fear of the new one is still stronger. But at some stage, shoving your bum down that darn edge is the only way to go. Your body is pulsating from the mere thought of it. But unfortunately a jump requires full immersion. You can’t jump half-way down and cling to a branch on the cliff. At least I can conclude this from my own experience. When I decide to take my chances to solve one issue, something new will pop up somewhere else, trialling the decision made just a moment ago.

On top of that, I have my economic ties and duties.

Sometimes I think that drop wasn’t as sheer as expected. After every dive, you will be back on solid ground just a few metres below – like on a staircase. You run, take a leap and close your eyes. You prepare for a deep drop, immersing into cold water. But a few moments later, you are back on firm ground.

I think you need to dare to burn the bridges and destroy your boats after breaking the ground of a new continent.

Otherwise, you will linger on the edge for years, torn apart from the drive to stay and the urge to jump.

Living on the edge. Jumping succeeds in daydreams you can retreat to roam in. I might sound like my own grandpa, yet I believe some of you might just feel the same.

Together with a good friend, I was able to find a way to make scaling the abyss bearable. I began to conceive a new image, illustrating the abyss as valley between two peaks.

It isn’t that kind of abyss, threatening you to fall down a endless and steep descent. It’s more of a valley you can traverse on foot or with facilities such as a cable car or a bridge in order to reach the next peak.

In order to choose the right way to the next peak, it is crucial to assess the valley’s depth. It certainly is requires a lot of effort to cross the valley on foot. If the valley is too deep, the use of facilities can be a good option. Either way, investments need to be made.

As the hike on foot will require commitment and work, so will any other forms of support. One kind of support can be seeking a good friend’s help. If the support needs to be a bit more solid in order to provide a stronger feeling of safety, then your choice could be a coach who helps you assess an adequate route across the valley. Or you can find a way by finding literature on that topic.

The new concept of the valley on the way up makes the route bearable. It also helps to find a way, because you can be sure that yonder, there is scalable terrain, too. The worst case scenario consists of walking the way by foot. It might not be pleasant, yet it doesn’t mean your plans are going to fail.

At the first glance, it seems that by connecting on Facebook and Instagram, just to name a few examples, we can better our staying in touch with peers. We have the feeling to be part of their lives and yet share ours with them, at least to some extent.

But taking a closer look, we have to admit those parts of our life that we actually expose to the public are almost exclusively special occasions shared as texts or pictures on Facebook such the like.

Images of must-see subtropical beaches, dinners in pricy restaurants, party pictures or glamorous moments on a festival.

It’s only really only the tip of the iceberg that we share with others, and what is more, we prefer our sunny side over the shady bits of us.

Considering our own behaviour, we can assume our peers do just the same.

Although we rather perceive the dull everyday life of our own, we compare it with the bright moments in other people’s lives. As a result, we feel disregarded. In our own lives, not everything is hip and shoe-shine.

At least can claim this to be true. If so in your lives: Congrationlations. You’ve made it.

But most likely, reality looks and feels different. For most people, one highlight just doesn’t follow after the other, and a life at its peak is far away from the truth.

But why do we compare ourselves with such an illusion of our peers’ lives? Wouldn’t it be much more beneficial to compare yourself to reality? And, taking it a step further, to keep away from the illusion of others?

Every person has a different course of life, their own precious skills and of course their own genuine worries.

We think that, in order to get a solid reference, there is no other option than comparing yourself… well, to yourself.

I. e. you can do that by asking yourself: “How was I last year? How have I changed since then?“ This approach will help you on your way. Also, it will promote you with to prosper and grow.

And if you now ask yourself what all this has to do with the skills you need to maintain relationships, please carry on reading.

Taking solid and realistic values into account as basis for comparisons, at best with ourselves, will promote our self-esteem and self-confidence.

A good self-esteem will help us avoid questioning ourselves and feeling hurt when people fling their unfounded gobbledegook at us.

That little doubtful voice in your head will grow mute.

We will grow the skills to become more authentic and attract people to our lives who really fit in. People who are fond of us because of who we are.

Those people who like our outward appearance usually aren’t the ones who would like us for real. With those people, the bare attempt of starting a relationship is in vain.

When we know our true value, we are less likely to fall into jealousy when our partner socialises with others, having a good time of laughter and merry-making.

Jealousy occurs when we feel less worthy than others.

If we don’t feel worthy of ourselves, we become jealous of those of whom we suppose they have a better life than we do etc..

This discord between our values creating by comparing ourselves with others via the social media weakens our self-esteem and thus the skills we need to live in a relationship.

A healthy partnership should be grounded on an equal basis. When two individuals value themselves and each other alike, they are able to prosper in equality – without jealousy or the need to control the other in order to compensate their own insecurities.

With this mindset and a more sensitive approach to using social media, we can can find a way to live our lives in an authentic way, despite being online in the virtual world.

It always is a question of our own mental stability how strong its impact is on us. As long as our self-esteem closely correlates with the number of likes on, it is time to make up your mind and take a break.

In the meantime, a growing number of supporting schemes are offered to people who seek help in grooming their self-esteem and self-confidence in order to man up against the flood of manipulating information.

The best conditions for a healthy relationship to grow is between two individuals who are firm and stable in their beliefs, not depending on a relationship in order to be happy or lucky.

Relationships, as a rule, are thus named, because we team up with others in mutual dependency, we relate to our counterparts. At the end of the day, it is not even important who is the stronger counterpart or who is more or less dependent of whom. As long as you are dependent, you can’t be authentic, that is, hardly or not at all.

As soon as you fear losing something of which you are dependent, no matter if in a emotional or material way, your fear leads you to disguising yourself. Or you start to behave in a way that you won’t bite the hand that feeds you.

So what are the typical dependencies in a relationship?

A) Firstly, there are material dependencies, for example

if one part of the couple earn the bigger share of a family’s income,

one of the partners’ family can boast with a rich supply of money

a family is lodged in the house as on partner’s parents/in the house in which of of the partners grew up,

maybe you have more ideas and examples of material dependencies…

B) Then, there are physical dependencies. We seek intimacy, long for being touched, crave sex and tenderness. Some people might even lust for torture and pain.

C) Yet, we deem emotional dependencies in a relationship to be the most relevant and treacherous ones. We desire care, love and happiness in our lives, appreciation, respect and a sense of value in the face of others.

All the rest…

That’s a heavy load, isn’t it? There is more to be said about this matter, believe us. More aspects can be added to any of the aforementioned categories.

In our opinion, the first two groups of dependencies can help decrease our being honest and authentic, thus ourselves. Yet, we think that the emotional aspect has the strongest impact on you.

If you don’t pay attention to the emotions a relationship, your life is going to derail. You will be prone to see your midlife crisis, and what is more, you might also develop suicidal conditions.

Emotions are the strongest kind of dependency, because they are entirely mental. It is a mental condition that lingers in your mind, causing severe pain.

As a matter of fact, you do have some influence on your emotions. At least considerably more than on material or physical factors. For example, you have little influence on how your partner supplies you with money. I turn, if you aren’t in your partner’s favour anymore, sex can be refused. In this way, the whole affair gets the air of trading goods on an oriental bazar.

Emotions and their triggers

The deal won’t work out with emotions. Feelings have their origin within yourself. Most likely, they are tied to thoughts. Every time, when an event or an action triggers a thought – by the way, your mind automatically assesses and categorises cognitive input – an emotion is created.

Our mind ploughs through all of its input in patterns that are defined by our personal beliefs. These have been formed in our childhood and are completely individually connected to our emotions…

So, every time our mind successfully processes a thought, a feeling is triggered. And when feelings are created in this way, how is it possible that the mechanism discussed above can have such an impact on us? How can someone hurt you? Why can someone make you feel unloved?

We personally don’t think it’s possible. Still, we try. We do so by attempting to please others, by doing things of we expect someone else to be happy. Sometimes, our efforts can be successful, and we can make someone feel good. Most likely, this is possible when we have just fallen in love and we are dazed by our hormones… But let’s get back to the point.

As a rule, our mind makes us believe that we have emotional impact on others, and so we put our well-being and our fate in someone else’s hands.

The responsibility for this action is far too hard to bear for anyone. There is no such “common ground“ for emotional patterns. Every individual sets out their journey from a different starting point, and so it is impossible for someone else to recognise your individual nuts and bolts right away. And if someone happen to hit the bull’s eye, then they can’t tell how they did it.

We don’t even have influence on the thoughts we trigger within our counterparts by words or deeds.This is downright unpredictable.

All our senses receive more or less the same information. But how the cognitive data is evaluated, is up to the individual person, it can differ significantly.

True partnership is the other option

A partnership is defined by to individual counterparts who are both able to cope with life and have a mutually balanced level of powers. Both of them can act independently and get by on their own. That’s partnership based on equal terms.

At first, this doesn’t sound very difficult. In fact, this is true. Yet, getting there can become a long haul for some people. Maybe, some might actually find this less difficult, depending on how they fared in their previous lives and which behavioural patterns they subconsciously adopted from their parents.

In order to live in a partnership, you need to achieve a certain level of stability. This specific asset is based on inner strength and independence. Nourishing your stability won’t just increase your satisfaction in a partnership with a woman or a man, it will also promote success in your job. It will help you to grow in all those fields where interaction with other individuals is crucial, and this even includes your own children.

You can achieve inner stability by learning how to avoid fishing for compliments and other people’s appreciation.

Not being in need of appreciation from others, because you are able to appreciate yourself, the same holds with love and respect.

If our emotions are hinged on others triggering feelings within us by chance, we will remain captives with a sense of lack. One might even perceive this contortion as a kind of prostitution, doing anything just to obtain the “drug“ as a reward.

Appreciation, praise and requited love are wonderful, and please don’t hesitate enjoying this marvellous experience.Yet be aware not to submit yourself to dependence because you think you can’t be love yourself for who you are and thus neglecting appreciation and respect.

The more we are able to nurture ourselves, the more we will receive from others. But first we have to stop seeking for it.

As soon as we begin pursuing our genuine interests without hesitation, other people will start to close up on our trail. Sounds weird? Well, we’ve seen it happen many times.

Harnessed with self-confidence and boasting authenticity, a person will take criticism much more lightly and won’t stray from the path as easily.

When we recognise ourselves, knowing our strength and weakness alike, we certainly know better than others who we are. As a consequence, we have other means of handling criticism. We are enabled to consent with criticism or to reject it if inappropriate. But we cease doubting our own beliefs when we are exposed to criticism.

Probably for the first time, we are able to approach criticisms in a more rational way.

Partnership on equal terms is true partnership. Without mutual dependencies, there are no mutual accusations. Classics are accusing your partner of not making you happy, being disrespectful or hurting another. And if you firmly believe that your partner does not give you the love you direly need, and this feeling is lingering for years, then this sooner or later will result in wrath and hatred.

This can hardly happen when we are independent of our emotions. People who don’t love themselves enough seem to believe they don’t deserve to be loved. Or can you think of others reasons why they don’t nurture themselves with love? If we don’t believe we deserve to be loved, then you won’t be able to perceive how others love you, even if they let you bathe in it.

If you can’t believe it, you won’t see it happen in your reality.

If you love yourself and feel you deserve to be loved, you will have a totally different approach to the world. You begin to realise how much love there is on earth and how much love you encounter. It is possible to achieve such an independence. As Kopfrichter it is our mission to help you working on these skills. For this purpose, we undergo constant training and we try out various techniques ourselves. Again and again we experience that life is way less complicated than we usually make it. Do not believe all you’re thinking. And don’t forget to laugh about life.

When it comes to understanding the nuts and bolts of a relationship, the ideas about can be quite contrary at times. It reminds me of an experiment from my school time I had to carry out.

Take three bowls of water. Fill in cold water into the left one, warm water into the right bowl and water at room temperature into the bowl in the centre.

Dip one finger in both the left and the right bowl, wait for a while until you remove them. Then, put both fingers into the centre bowl. One finger will feel warm, the other one cold.

Both hands have a different perception of the „truth“ about the temperature. Albeit, the water in the middle has room temperature.

The matter of discussion with my wife is that she complains that I am away from the family much at a time, neglecting my duties. My perception is just the opposite: I am pretty certain I support my family in the best way I can, regarding both quantity and quality.

After a period of observation which has been lasting for almost three years, I came to a conclusion that my wife could confirm. The essential isn’t about who’s right, but rather who relates to which standards.

My wife had a father who was a mobile shop-owner. Thus, he usually was at home, at least in the afternoon and at the weekend. So, he was present almost 24/7. As a result, this is the standard to which she relates. I am, there again, closely related to memories from my childhood. My father got up while I still was asleep and I had already gone to bed when he came back home. At the weekend, he often was busy working, too, so the essential memories stem from the family holidays. Then, he did great things with us. For me and my siblings it was like going on an adventure.

When I look at my 40-hours working week in my nine-to-five job, my presence at home almost feels abundant: I leave the house together with my children, and as a rule, I will be back in time for supper with the family at six. At the weekends, I am at home, too, and I do not tend to pursue any time-consuming hobbies. As a result, I found my wife’s complaints about me being away from home too often pretty odd. In my perception, I was present very often compared to my father. I dissented her, and I felt her accusations to be ill-placed.

Fair enough, this is two persons who ultimately have a different conception of the reality they are in. Both see the truth. Anyhow, it is filtered through the lenses of their own emotional references and thus their mind-sets.

How to let your parents off the hook

Although I have the impression that this matter is a common issue, I will give you an account of my own experience. Certainly, it can cause a lot of strife and pain in life. Today’s article deals with relationships of all sorts: relationships with a partner, colleagues, friends and also your own children, if you have any.

I observed myself as well as others, and I have found out that troubles in relationships, be it big or small ones, are directly related to the relationship with your own parents.

Not only through the conditioning at the toddler’s age, but especially the conditioning in your period of adolescence has a strong impact.

At the age of 18, I wasn’t quite grown up. In the presence of my parents, I took the role of a little boy who was dependent of his parents’ appreciation and benevolence. At the age of 19, I moved from home, and aged 20, I became a father myself. Yet, I had not become independent of my parents.

Considering the decision to move 700 kms away to the South of Germany, back then, it was what I would have called my own, free decision, but in-between I regard it as an opportunity to maintain a distance between me and my parents which was considerably more just than an arms’s length. This, in fact, was the thing that led me to that decision. I was still ensnarled in the relationship with my parents, but taking to the distance, I only turned my back on them. I became a rebel that fought against everything that reminded me of my parents. I would have opted for anything, as long as it did not make me like them.

There is no freedom, as long as you relate all your decisions to your parents. Just as much, neither in complying with expectations, nor in opposing them, there is freedom. It is not the sense for your own needs and your gut feeling that guide you, but you are controlled by external impacts. I very much felt under the sway of my mother and tried to prevent her from having influence on my life. But I deemed her to be responsible for taking control and influencing my life. So, I neglected my own share in the situation. Back then, I thought I couldn’t help it but accept that I had a domineering mother.

Today I know I let her take control and influence my life. And I have learned that I am in control of who can influence my life and who cannot.

When parents cast their shadow in your life

As long as you are trying to get your parents’ appreciation and attention, and you probably do so with a mindset of perpetual need, you surrender yourself to their control and thus become dependent. You are not being authentic and contort yourself in order to comply.

Inbetween I have found a way to let my parents off the hook, to realise, and yet more important: to feel. Yes, to feel how much your very own parents were love-driven. They did the best to meet your needs. Probably you couldn’t regard it as such, but they they strived for the best they could give.

And you could bet they had their issues with their own parents, too, Although they might have deceased, emotional bonds linger. Interestingly enough, it is mostly inside your head, fuelled by your own imagination. And for this reason, we do not need our parents in order to overcome our issues. We are able to carry out the process of resolving our emotional bonds and reconcile with our past on our own accord. At the end of the day, it is crucial to conceive a positive image of your parents free from past bitterness. Your ultimate aim is to feel at least comfortable, thinking of your mum and dad.

If we override this evident aspect, not resolving the issues with our parents, we tend to replace our real-world peers with whom we had these conflicts with representatives and subdue ourselves to their control. Typically, your own partner takes this place. In my case, this was my wife.

I never could speak up and take a stand in the face of my mother. That is, I played a role and wore a mask. I held back any adverse reactions and thus pursued my deepest desires secretly. And if you consider that my wife also has her issues, you can imagine that we were in for trouble.

It proved very difficult to find solutions on a rational level, because the reasons for the problems could not be fathomed by intra-marital troubleshooting. As a matter of fact, this becomes very clear looking at my own children. They take me and my wife as role models, and they adopt our behaviour and hark! they create just the same mess as their parents.

Only by resolving the issues with my parents, I could make some progress in sorting out the relationship with my wife. I am optimistic to break the vicious circle that otherwise would have ended up in the children battling against their parents’ and grandparents’ conflicts. I firmly believe that conflict patterns, especially those between people, are handed down from generation to generation until they are resolved. Only when the true cause is found, a change is possible. And this gives the new generation a genuine opportunity to work on the future instead of meddling with the past.

Back to the roots

In the meantime, I talked to numerous people having marital problems, issues with hierarchic structures at work or those not feeling accepted by their environment. Up to now, all cases could be tracked down to a conflict between parents and children. You should become able to accept your parents the way they are, don’t forget you haven’t walked in their shoes. This will help you to leave behind my obedience and the reproachful attitude connected to it. And ultimately to become an adult. All this took me 40 years to accomplish, but better now than never.

And if you bear in mind the purpose of strengthening the three Pillars, self-awareness, self-confidence and self-esteem, you will feel genuinely free.

There is guarantee that everyone will hail you for that, but it certainly feels better to be appreciated by some for the person you truly are rather than to be hyped by the masses for someone you pretend to be. There is no miraculous remedy to cure this issue, but they certainly are ways and means to do resolve the issue by setting out on the journey. One of these was mine.

Victims are mental prisoners

Today, I am writing about responsibility and commitment. I values these assets as solid fundament to build a life in contentment and abundance on.

I have seen both sides, my life before I took my chances and the time after committing myself. I do not want to go back to my old lifestyle, rather I would like to carry on conceiving my future – led by a sense of responsibility for me and my children alike. I feel that there is no way around taking the full responsibility for your life, if you want to be a genuinely grown-up person. You have to face it all and you must live with the consequences of your actions.

Doesn’t this sound familiar to you? Your parents failed putting you in the right school. You blame our teachers for bad marks and subsequently a bad report. My employer failed at enabling my to live to my full potential. Not to speak about the low wage. You certainly deserve more.

It’s society’s fault that I’m *four-letter worded*, no to say the leaders and politics are to be blamed.

Left in the dark

I think that ceding responsibility in the aforementioned manner happens subconsciously. We imitate our role models and stick to the acquired patterns by habituation. Only in this way, a childhood without hassle is possible, if there are parents who are answerable for the needs of their children.

But when coming of age, the situation should change. I had to settle for a family my own and see 4 decades of life to realise this.

In order to become indepedent, I had to loosen the bonds with my parents. And there is no way around it. But, anyhow, I don’t mean to turn your back on your mum and dad and pretend not to know them anymore. I mean that you should reconcile with your parents and establish a genuine and sincere relationship with them. Unfortunately there are people who fail to do so before they die. And on biting the dust, they grieve over their lives, realising they did not live a life of their own but tried to please others.

All this can slip into your life when you don’t heed your needs, subduing yourself to the values and principles of others. Or if we choose a career, because our parents think it to be important to do something „sensible“ instead following your heart’s desire, that is, if we obey our fears rather than taking the chances that lie before us.

If we take responsibility, we are able to to reconsider old, I mean, wrong decisions with newly gained insights. We can change our job, we can become freelancers or start pursuing our dreams.

Or we stick with what we know and change nothing. It is no use moaning about your awful job or blaming your parents for your own career. We complain, become bitter, waiting for miracles that change the world.

This would be like sitting at a bus stop and complaining that no trains are coming.

Substitute conflicts

From my own experience I can conclude that the process of detachment from your parents is crucial to act on your own account. If we neglect this important step with our parents, our parents will be replaced as peers for a conflict by our disciplinarians, partners or any other kind of social environment. The patterns are always the same: It’s the others’ blame that I can’t live in the way I deserve.

I see such conflicts arise most likely in relationship problems. Indeed, I went through all of this in a chrome-class marital crisis. Having understood that these disputes are substitutes for unresolved conflicts with my mother, I realised that breaking up would get me nowhere. There’d be no distinct benefit from doing so, it would only destroy my family. Instead of running away, I rather should resolve the issue.

I ultimately believe that changing your partner won’t solve issues in a relationship. In this case, we tend to cede the responsability to our partner and take the role of a victim. And when we meet the next partner, we will run in the same things again. Maybe they will have a slightly different shape, but once the hormones calm down, the old issued will be conjured up again.

This pattern is going to remain repetitive until we work on the core problems and finally do away with them.

This, ultimately, is sovereign and mature behaviour, worthy of an adult, grown-up person.

The strife and hassle we encounter in life are, according to the Kopfrichter principles, connected with the Three Pillars: Self-awareness, self-confidence and self-esteem. These three elements help us to strengthen our personality and thus reduce the impact of others on us.

If you are in touch with yourself, it is much more easy to take responsibility.